Good Old Games

Here's something you might find interesting: Good Old Games is a new site offering classic games for download. Run by CD Projekt (the company behind The Witcher) this may not seem revolutionary at first glance perhaps, but it does have some fresh ideas. First and foremost, every game is completely DRM free. Completely. You do not have to install some client software to download and run it (though a downloader is available for those who want one), you do not get any malware of any kind bundled in the installers. You get just the game, hassle free.

Second, the games have all been fixed to run on XP and Vista. Some classic games work fine outright, some they've bundled a preconfigured DOSbox and a new launcher with, sometimes they've gotten hold of the source and just recompiled it with modern tools, and others again have required some special solutions. But for you it always means you can just download, install and run and not have to think about anything else. It's not always perfect, I got Freespace from there and it has issues with some Nvidia cards, like mine. But it's being worked on. So there's that too, full support after having bought something.

Games are priced from USD5.99 to 9.99, most being 5.99. Because this is a very new site, they have only gotten Codemasters and Interplay aboard so far (more are coming though). But that means they allready have titles like the Fallout series, Freespace series, Descent series, Jagged Alliance 2, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, the MDK games, Lionheart, TOCA 3 and a bunch more, with more to come. And every game you buy also has various bonus material for download, such as the official soundtracks, wallpapers and such. A typical gamepage looks like this:

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s...l/gog_game.jpg

Of course the big question is why. All of these games can easily be obtained on various torrent sites. And you can normally get them to run one way or the other yourself. The idea is with a low price and any kind of hassle removed or taken care of, is the illegal route worth the bother? Plus you get to own a legal copy and know what little money you did spend goes back to the right people.

There's a nice interview with a couple of the guys up on Ars Technica where they discuss their anti DRM stance and the site.

As I said the site is still in beta so it's still not open for everyone. I've gotten in on it though, and I have one invite to give out to anyone who's interested in having a closer look. If there's more, whoever I invite will also have an invite to give to the next guy so it should be possible to get several people in. Even if that fails, the beta should have ended in september but haven't yet. But that must mean that it opens for everyone soon anyway.

Personally I think this looks really promising and I can certainly see myself getting a lot of games from there if they are succesful. It's definitely worth a look. :)

This service has just started its open beta so anyone can use it now. I really think you should check it out, especially if you missed out on a lot of the PC-games from that era like me. This really is a great way to grab and play some of the classics on modern systems.

This looks great. Very nice website, and they are offering some great older PC titles. It is also great that they have updated the games to run on newer OSs.

I've already registered for GOG and I have to say, I'm very impressed.:)

Looks to be a great idea!

Old games rule just saw one of my old faves Stonekeep loved that game. Hope they extend the catalogue as it sounds a great idea and more time for playing the games rather that configuring them with dosbox/xp/vista etc

Great shout Teho

I haven't checked it yet but do they also offer Origin's and Lucasart's old game catalog; the Wing Commanders, Ultimas, Adventures.

Not yet. So far, the publishers/developers they've gotten aboard are Codemasters, Interplay, Xicat Interactive (Gothic), Strategy First (Sacred), Empire Interactive and Sir-Tech Software (Jagged Alliance). They are still adding games from these's catalouges, but more publishers are also on the way. I don't know who owns Origin's games library these days, but the Wing Commander games are often requested so I bet this is one they want to get aboard. As for Lucasarts, well... The point of GOG is that the games have no DRM whatsoever. And knowing Lucasarts' stance on releasing their grip on their games.. OK, the games aren't given away free on GOG, but my impression of Lucasarts is that they won't be fans of this whole no DRM idea. I hope I'm wrong though. Never saw any mention of it, but their games are also requested a lot on there, so I bet GOG will at least approach Lucasarts if nothing else.

Wing commander can be downloaded from here.

Ultima games can be found here.

And anything else can be found on HOTU here.

Yes we all know that you can find these games on various abandonware sites, but the entire purpose of GOG is to provide the games fixed to run on modern PCs, provide customer support and to provide the games with no form of copy protection. You also get various extras along with the games and if nothing else get to own a legit copy (and show the industry that draconian DRM schemes aren't necessary to sell games, quality is). For many, myself included, all this is worth the 6 or 10 USD they ask. I certainly understand that many won't agree though. ;)